Mamman Nur, a senior figure in the Nigerian militant group Boko Haram, reportedly has been killed by some of his own colleagues. Nur’s men allegedly gunned him down in August following an internal dispute. A key point of dispute was Nur’s decision to release schoolgirls kidnapped from the northeast Nigerian town of Dapchi.
Nur led a faction of Boko Haram that broke away in 2014 from the militant group led by Abubakar Shekau. Nur’s faction, which pays allegiance to IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and that selected Abubakar al-Barnawi as its emir, established its operational base around Lake Chad north of Nigeria’s Borno state.
Nur has been open to negotiating with the Nigerian government about issues such as releasing captives and as such his death is a great loss to the militants. Nur is said to have been uniting force among all factions of Boko Haram and as such his death would lead to further factions and the weakening of the terror organization.
